Man Faces 180 Years In Sex Crimes

May 29, 2008|By Peter Dujardin, pdujardin@dailypress.com 247-4749

NEWPORT NEWS — A 15-year-old girl took the stand during a jury trial in Newport News Circuit Court on Wednesday and tearfully gave a detailed account of sexual abuse that prosecutors said began when she was 9.

Andrew Obie Vaughn, 45, recently of Northern Virginia but formerly of 68th Street, was accused of sexually assaulting the girl several times when she was between 9 and 12.

The girl said Vaughn assaulted her many times between 2001 and 2005, when her mother was either sleeping or at work. The incidents first began with touching and fondling, she said, but gradually advanced to rape, with him laying on top of her and holding down her shoulders as she asked him to stop. He wouldn't stop, she said, but would instead try to get her to stop crying.

Once, she said, she bit him in a shoulder, trying to get him off her. Another time, she said, he put a towel over her face as he raped her. And another time, she said, she had to go to school still sore after an assault.

After the abuse, the girl testified, Vaughn would often apologize profusely, telling her that it wouldn't happen again, and sometimes banging his head against a wall, angry at himself. At other times, she said, he would act as if nothing happened and continue with ordinary plans for the day - such as taking her to play at a swimming pool.

The abuse would invariably continue, until it finally stopped in 2005, the girl said.

"She was a bright girl, a sweet girl who liked school," said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Robin L. Farkas, the state's prosecutor on the case. "Her childhood ended when she was nine."

After a one-day trial, a jury convicted Vaughn, a retired Army soldier, of 19 charges: five counts of rape, two countsof object sexual penetration, seven of taking indecent liberties with a minor and five of aggravated sexual battery.

The jury recommended Vaughn get 180 years in prison - 20 years each for the rape charges, 10 years apiece for the object-sexual-penetration charges and five years apiece for the indecent-liberties and sexual-battery charges. He'll be formally sentenced July 18 by Newport News Circuit Court Judge Aundria D. Foster, though judges typically follow jury recommendations.

The Daily Press isn't naming the girl because of the newspaper's policy not to identify victims of sexual assault.

Vaughn steadfastly denied that he committed the crimes, saying the girl and her mother collaborated to make up the story against him. "I am not the monster they're making me out to be," he said. "She's an actress. ... That little girl is dangerous."

Vaughn said he worked two full-time jobs - in the Army and at a Portsmouth shipyard - and was hardly in the places where the assaults happened during the time they were said to have occurred. He also said his court-appointed lawyer, David B. Olson, did a poor job.

Several months after the girl and her mother moved away, doctors learned that the girl was pregnant. She told investigators that Vaughn was the only person she had sex with. Yet, DNA testing revealed that the baby wasn't Vaughn's but a different man's.

During her testimony Wednesday, the girl said Vaughn had sex with her several times, including the most recent time before she learned that she was pregnant. That's why she assumed Vaughn was the father and identified him as such to investigators, she said. The other man, she said, had sex with her twice.

The girl testified that she initially lied about not having had sex with anyone but Vaughn because she didn't want to open up an entirely new issue and have to "go through more stuff." She eventually cooperated in the state's case against the second man. That man, Justin Abram, was convicted of two rape counts in a jury trial in May 2007 and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Olson, Vaughn's defense attorney, said the girl accused Vaughn to protect the second man.

The girl's mother called the outcome a "perfect verdict," saying Vaughn knew better.